Spontaneous Movements (Kriyas) & Meditation

Comment: I initially thought that the spontaneous movements were not mentioned in Yoga, but they are mentioned and are called Kriyas.

Betsy: Yoga is thought to have originated from spontaneous movements happening to long time meditators. In other words, the yoga poses came afterwards as a tool or technique to hopefully get the awakening result.

Comment: However, last year I was very interested to discover the Yogi’s spontaneous Dance of Shiva mentioned as un-codified freestyle taichi movements. Therefore, the answer to my original question is that there are so many types of naturally occurring Kundalini Kriyas and exercises that only the more common types are grouped together and given names.

Betsy: After experiencing many hours of spontaneous movements, I feel confident I know what causes kriyas. The kriya is a necessary part of healing and transformation. Stretching is the way the body uses to open blocked areas, it excites nerve and muscle cells. I don’t experience the kriyas as very dance like or with finger poses or tai chi forms, not outwardly, but it can feel like that as I ‘ride the wave’ of energy and allow my Central Nervous System (CNS) to move my body without me doing it. Often there are three of four yoga-like poses in an hour long session of allowing my body to move on it’s own. The basic ones I’ve seen are standing, bending forward at hips with arms dangling, upwards and downwards dog, sitting spinal twists, lying on back, lying on stomach with cobra lift of head on supported arms. Lying on stomach with top of head on mat and ‘neck pops’ with legs and arms in a kind of frog shape, one feels pressure on the sacrum and neck at same time. Deep squats with legs apart to open pelvic bowl. Sitting with legs to front and slow lowering of spine. Sitting with legs folded, child’s pose, sitting Indian style, but not with feet on top of thighs. Those are the main one’s I recall after many thousands of sessions. I have notes from each day so have a record of the movements.

What I’ve been through is in the last years doesn’t look so pretty, is is not very appealing, entertaining, dance like and is not an easy thing to do. It has challenged me to my core and to my endurance and ability to continue on with it. But getting a totally rebuilt skeleton and body and being restored to full health and vibrancy is a great benefit, not to mention the rising awareness, enhanced sensory apparatus, etc. But positively it is the most awesome and thrilling thing I’ve ever done, and I would do it again and go through all that pain again, to get the result I have today.

Comment: I now recall that a few years back, a Kundalini teacher said something like don’t be distracted or mesmerized by the Kriyas because they occur on the path but are not the path nor the goal. The best approach is to just observe or witness the spontaneous Kriyas and enjoy the experience. There is no need to try to control them because by that point it is too late.

Betsy: This advice has to do with the tendency of one’s personality to take over and make something out of nothing, to create a technique, to name it, to follow a regime, to ‘be conditioned’. It is also given in meditation, in regards to ‘maya’ or symptoms experienced through this process. So then meditators get trapped trying to create ‘altered states’ of reality. That the same happens with people that want to have kundalini transformation, they pretend they are having kriyas or get lost in technique or overly focused on developing the body. The hard part is we are used to doing things via learned behavior through subconscious mind or programmed response (where we’re coming from and evolving away from), and it is difficult for us to grasp the simple idea that ‘we don’t have to do anything’. The more we let go, the more it progresses all by itself. It doesn’t need any technique, besides a willingness to let go.

Comment: It’s interesting how, even when one knows the theory, it is quite different to be able to apply it in practice at the right time and place for practical purposes.

Betsy: So you see, this is inherently problematic: knowing isn’t helpful, applying what you know isn’t helpful. The more you try to apply what you know ‘as practice’, is equal to learned or programmed behavior. This requires engagement of the mind and focusing one’s energy through thought which doesn’t work. Kundalini transformation of mind and body progresses when we let go of control. It’s needs no direction, no technique and no knowing, which can be quite humbling.

One comment on “Spontaneous Movements (Kriyas) & Meditation”

I recall the first time I experienced spontaneous kriyas while meditating. I remember briefly thinking “am I going into a seizure?”..not that I’d ever had a seizure but the being unable to control one’s body, to be the external witness looking on was quite the experience for a young woman who had no idea of kundalini

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